In youth, what disappointments of our own making: in age, what disappointments from the nature of things.

We wish our names eternally to live; Wild dream! which ne'er had haunted human thought, Had not our natures been eternal too.

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, how complicate, how wonderful is man! Distinguished link in being's endless chain! Midway from nothing to the Deity! Dim miniature of greatness absolute! An heir of glory! A frail child of dust! Helpless immortal! Insect infinite! A worm! A God!

Each moment has its sickle, emulous Of Time's enormous scythe, whose ample sweep Strikes empires from the root.

When men of infamy to grandeur soar, They light a torch to show their shame the more.

Let no man trust the first false step of guilt; it hangs upon a precipice, whose steep descent in last perdition ends.

Body and soul, like peevish man and wife, United jar, and yet are loth to part.